


different kind of magic

by atamascolily



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016), Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Crosstober, F/M, One Shot, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27035722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atamascolily/pseuds/atamascolily
Summary: Mike finds an unusual volume among his D&D manuals, and the adventure begins.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	different kind of magic

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Crosstober! It's a challenge where you pair two random fandoms and see what pops out in a short fic. Here is the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane mashed up with Stranger Things.

Cleaning up after his friends have gone home for the night, Mike finds a book that he doesn't remember buying in his pile of Dungeons and Dragons manuals. The cover depicts an elderly man in robes and a sweeping beard, facing down a dragon with his wand streaming sparks beneath the unmistakable D&D logo. 

Except that when Mike looks more closely, he realizes this one says "Wizardry and Wandlore". 

Mike stares at it and frowns. Maybe one of Lucas's supplements got mixed up with his? Surely he'd remember seeing this before. 

It looks cool, though. So he opens the book, and begins paging through it, just to check it out. 

There are black and white line drawings of strange and wondrous creatures, just like his other game manuals, page after page of stats and spell descriptions. Otherwise, it's not like any D&D book he's ever encountered. 

For one thing, much of it is written in a beautiful, looping script he can't decipher, like a cross between Arabic and the writing on the One Ring in _The Lord of the Rings_. 

For another thing, the book is dead serious. It's not asking you to _pretend_ to be a wizard--it assumes you really _are_ one. 

"No way," Mike says, shaking his head in disbelief. "No way this is real. This has gotta be a joke." 

But the more he reads--of the history of wizards, of their legends and lore, and the Lone Power they're sworn to fight--he realizes he believes it. 

Entropy is real, after all. Mr. Clark explained it to them a few weeks ago in science class, but Mike already knew all about it thanks to years of Dustin's angry rants on the subject. The laws of thermodynamics are unbeatable; it's a principle of physics. You can't win, you can't quit, you can't break even. And entropy always wins. 

But if you _could_ slow it down... 

This is crazy. He can't believe he's really doing this. But the book flips open to the Oath that it says all wizards must swear to come into their powers--and he reads it aloud, slowly and carefully. 

"In Life's name and for Life's sake, I assert that I will employ the Art which is its gift in Life’s service alone, rejecting all other usages..."

Nothing happens. He wonders if he should read it again, then dismisses the idea as foolish. Either it worked or it didn't, and--it looked like it didn't. 

Mike closes the book and goes upstairs, oddly angry at whoever put together a hoax so clever that--just for a second--he actually believed it. 

***

In the morning, when an electric spark curls through his fingertips when he brushes against the book, Mike realizes he was wrong. Magic _is_ real, and he _is_ a wizard now, with his name in the index and everything. He can't wait to find out all the cool stuff he can do--and tell his friends all about it. 

But Will's not at school, and Mike is summoned to the principal's office so that the police chief can ask them questions about what happened after the D&D game got out, and Mike realizes his first spell is going to have to be finding out what happened to Will. 

Of course, Dustin and Lucas are on board with cycling out to the woods at night to investigate, even if they grouse that Mike's insistence on a saltshaker and three actually-lead plum bobs along with the compasses and portable radios absolutely ridiculous. 

***

The spell doesn't lead to Will. 

Instead, they find El--and now Mike has a strange girl living in a blanket fort in his basement that his parents don't know about. A girl who's a wizard on errantry, just like he is. 

And their Ordeal is to track down the monster from a warped and twisted version of Hawkins that took Will and bring him back.

Their job--with Dustin and Lucas's help--is to make sure _this_ Hawkins doesn't end up under the Lone Power's thumb like that one. 

There's no one else. 

***

They get Will back, but not without sacrifices. El vanishes in the final battle against the demogorgon, and Mike can't find her, no matter what spells he tries. 'A spell always works,' his manual claims, so why are all his attempts coming up blank? 

He misses her so much. There's always Timeheart, he supposes, but... it's not the same.

Will isn't the same, either. He--sees things now, that he didn't used to. Something in the Upside-Down destroyed his lungs and he coughs all the time, and refuses to let Mike heal him. What good is being a wizard if you can't help your friends? 

Bad: Dustin and Lucas can't take their eyes off the new girl at school, Max, who also happens to be a wizard, and is super-pissed that Mike told his friends the truth about magic instead of keeping it a secret from the uninitiated. Worse: there's a series of rouge worldgates opening up in Hawkins, and if Mike can't close them, they are all seriously fucked. Even worse: the Lone Power keeps possessing Will to taunt Mike and spoil their attempts to thwart him. 

There's a lot of blood and screaming and running through a labyrinth of underground tunnels in terror as Mike and Max scramble to close the worldgates with Dustin and Lucas's help and running commentary. Just as the Lone Power's monsters have them backed into a corner, and all hope seems lost, El returns at the last possible moment to close the last worldgate and save the day. 

(Turns out she was in Chicago, making friends with an entire group of adult wizards, not to mention the local Seniors and Advisories who are all _very_ interested in what's going on in Hawkins... but Mike doesn't find this out until much later.) 

The Lone Power retreats, defeated. The heat death of the universe is delayed a little longer. Will gets better, Mike and Max reconcile, Max starts dating Lucas, and Mike slow-dances with El at the Snow Ball. All is right with the universe, at least for the space of a song. 

_A spell always works_ , he thinks in satisfaction as they sway together in time to the music. 

Then El kisses him, and Mike realizes that there's an entire realm of magic that doesn't involve speech (or Speech). 

He's looking forward to learning all about it with her.


End file.
